Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor is 50th Anniversary Special

“The Day of the Doctor” is the name of the eagerly anticipated 50th-anniversary episode of the “Doctor Who”, the BBC has revealed.

The story – which, the BBC reports, runs to 75 minutes in length – has been written by Doctor Who‘s showrunner, Steven Moffat, and directed by Nick Hurran.

It stars Matt Smith, David Tennant and John Hurt – all playing different incarnations of the Doctor.

The Day of the Doctor follows on from The Name of the Doctor, the episode that ended the most recent season of the world’s longest-running science-fiction television series. Once again, it sees the Doctors up against the Daleks, who are also celebrating their golden anniversary this year, and the Zygons, last seen in 1975, in the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) story, Terror of the Zygons.

It will be broadcast on Saturday, 23 November 2013, the exact anniversary, to the day, that the first-ever episode was broadcast: Saturday, 23 November 1963.

* John Hurt was introduced as the Doctor in the closing moments of The Name of the Doctor. His position in the Doctor’s timeline is to be explained in The Day of the Doctor.

The Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) will make his debut in this year’s Doctor Who Christmas special, to be broadcast on Wednesday, 25 December. It will also mark the final outing of the Eleventh Doctor.